


He Was My Friend

by KailynBail



Category: Titanfall
Genre: Best Friends, Bromance, Comrades in Arms, Epic Bromance, Friendship, M/M, he's more than a machine, never give up, partners until the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 15:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10130096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KailynBail/pseuds/KailynBail
Summary: Rifleman Jack Cooper and BT-7274. They were never meant to find each other, never meant to be together. But apparently they had both missed the memo on that one. Either way... they were forced to find a way to make it work and in doing so, forged a friendship that transcended social norms. It went beyond. Jack... hell, it never set well with him what happened to BT. It never would.CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TITANFALL 2 SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN!!!!





	

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!
> 
> Okay, so personally... I thought it was messed up that Jack wasn't more upset over BT. Just sayin'... granted there at the end... well yeah. But still! I bawled like a freaking baby. So... naturally... I had to write it up. Just a short story with a lot of angst.

Jack could still hear his pulse in his ears as he fought against Commander Briggs. “No! You have to go back! We can’t just leave him there!!”

Sarah held onto the pilot who was never supposed to be a pilot… they were all still reeling from what happened, the mission… everything. But they couldn’t go back… the planet was literally being torn asunder. “Cooper. No.” She said firmly, giving him a bit of a shake to match her words, trying to make him see reason. But she saw it, there in his eyes… the way they were blood shot, and not just from the injuries he no doubt sustained… it was there in the way his chin shook even though his lips were pressed together tightly… in the way he didn’t allow himself to blink completely for how many tears had gathered there on his lower lashes… in the way his nostrils flared… in the way he still shook his head in denial at her when she said _BT is gone… I’m sorry._

Jack jerked away from her, going to stand at one of the windows… and stare out into the great nothingness that was space. He couldn’t believe it… he _wouldn’t_ believe it. BT couldn’t be gone… his mind… he couldn’t… focus. His adrenaline fell only the slightest bit and so did he… his knees buckled and down he went… hard.

Sarah cursed loudly as she dove for him… she knew he was only running on fumes. She and another soldier managed to get him onto the row of seats and buckle him down… she hoped he’d be squared away when he woke up. _This is why pilots train to become pilots…_ a neuro-link in the field? She still had no idea what the hell Captain Lastimosa had been thinking.

Jack came awake slowly… and then all at once. He bolted upright out of the hospital bed… eyes wide with alarm as he looked around the infirmary. He startled almost violently when a nurse seemingly appeared out of nowhere at his bedside. “Where… where are my things!?” He nearly shouted at her… his head aching… he ignored it and her protests as he flipped the blanket off of his legs and swung them over the edge of the bed. _Sir… sir… please… don’t do that… you’re belongings are right here._ He looked in the chair beside the bed… his suit… helmet… and the sere kit. He took a ragged breath and waved her off again. “How long have I been here?” He stood up, swayed… batted her away and righted himself. _Sir… please… don’t… three days._ He cursed under his breath and started dressing, pulling everything on and tossing the Johnny on the bed. “I have somewhere to be.” He stormed past her and down the hall, getting turned around twice before he spilled out into daylight… and the base. He had his helmet in one hand and the sere in the other… he immediately broke into a jogging run and made for the Titan headquarters.

Sarah was sitting at her desk, for once. She had a mountain of paperwork that she was slowly working through when she nearly came out of her chair… Jack literally threw open her door without so much as a knock. “Cooper?!”

Jack was already out of breath, his heart pounding, his head aching… he was pretty sure he tore some stitches somewhere. He didn’t care… he took the few steps to her desk and almost slammed both his helmet and the sere down on whatever the hell she had been working on, he didn’t care. “Bring him back!” He straightened, shifting his weight anxiously.

Sarah leaned back in her chair and jumped when he all but dropped the two things on her desk. _Holy hell…_ she looked up at him… and just stared for a moment before she shook her head and gestured to the two items. “Cooper… Jack… it… it doesn’t work like that.”

Jack was already shaking his head when she started speaking, it was the tone of her voice. “Bullshit! You can… you can dig in here…” He had his helmet in his hands and was turning it over, pointing into it. “And… and… find him! He’s… he’s in there...” Tears welled, he vehemently ignored them… and the pain he felt stabbing him in the throat. His eyes flicked to the sere. “Or here! Here… this is… this is supposed to be him right? I mean… it worked last time… but… the… circle thing is missing but… you can find him!” He pushed both items towards her more firmly, sliding papers on her desk before he stood back up and looked at her… just… doing his best not to let his expression crumble… like he felt on the inside. All of his yelling… or rather, loud talking… (barking at her) had drawn attention… and more than one person had drifted into the doorway her large office to be nosey.

Sarah stared at him… at the commanding way he was talking to _her_. At the… near desperation in his voice… and then the way he pushed the helmet and sere back at her… as if he were a child… demanding she fix his toy. She ignored the onlookers. “Private Cooper.” She said firmly… trying to ignore the way his features trembled. “BT 7274 is gone. You will be issued a new titan… and the neuro team will remove the last of your neuro link. That should help.” _Her_ features immediately hardened at his reaction.

Jack… well… he snapped… not to put too fine of a point on it. “ _No!!”_ He picked up his helmet and the sere, pulling them back against himself as if she were going to try and take them away. “He’s not!” He took a step back, brows drawn low as anger snapped in his eyes. “I don’t want another titan! If you won’t… find him… than I’ll have to find a way!” He turned around only to be flanked by other high ranking members of the militia and the Titan program. He backed up a step, turning around and looking at them all before his tenor came out rough. “We weren’t assigned to each other… we stayed together because we wanted to.” He looked down at the more than likely useless sere, holding it a bit tighter against him. “He was my friend…” He said it low, his chin shaking violently for a second. “And you left him there…” He looked at Commander Briggs sharply. “You just left him there…”

Sarah felt herself go… quiet… on the inside as she witnessed this… rifleman… this man who wasn’t anything special… who, through circumstance and bad luck… became a pilot. And… if she were being honest… one of the best pilots she’d ever seen. Sure he wasn’t as graceful or technically sound as any of the other pilots… but he was fearless in a way that was beyond even her. And the bond he had with BT was… well, she witnessed how strong it was… when BT rejected being assigned a more qualified pilot when given the chance. She had no idea what the two of them had gone through together in the six months they had been alone on that god forsaken planet after the crash… but it was obviously enough to forge a friendship… not just a partnership. She realized in that moment that this man wasn’t panicking because he thought his time in the pilot program was over… as she had thought almost immediately after they left the planet. He was… grieving. “All right, Jack… go with Rogers here… and he’ll take a look. If there’s a way… he’ll at least see the start of the path.” She nodded to the man that was standing near the door… the man stepped forward and gestured for Cooper to follow.

Jack nodded… straightened… and followed the man she told him to.

Once everyone was out of her office… she turned to her computer terminal and pulled up the log for that final day. She accessed BT’s in cockpit camera… and watched the final moments. She watched as BT was nearly incapacitated entirely… Jack’s vitals on the bottom right showed he was losing blood pressure, a sure sign that he had been injured. _My tracking system is down, Jack._ She watched Jack steer BT by hand… _A jump is the only way._ She heard BT say… and her own voice over the radio. She remembered BT (and he said it on the recording) that he had a plan. Her lips formed a thin line as she watched BT climb up into the massive gun… on his screen… she saw that he was attempting to reset. On the list… it stated Protocol One… once he was seated. BT’s voice changed slightly, it went… softer. _Jack, I am glad that you are my pilot._ And Jack’s voice… _I’m not going anywhere, BT, We’re in this together._ And BT’s _agreement._ She saw the Titan’s hand come up and form a thumbs up… and Jack do the same before the gun just launched them… as soon as they were in the air, Protocol Two… came up on the screen. She saw Jack’s vitals spiking, his heart rate skyrocketing… and then, BT’s voice. _I’m at 100% Jack._ But nothing else came up on the screen. The hatch opened and she heard Jack’s alarmed cry. _BT what are you doing?!_ She saw Jack fight against the titan’s hand as it came in and pulled him out… BT turned in the air. _Goodbye Jack._ And BT just threw him… and Jack’s cry of _BT!!!_ As the man turned also, reaching for the titan… she saw it from BT’s point of view… and the way Jack was flailing, trying to get back to him even though it was useless… and right before she knew he hit the arc… she saw BT’s metal hand reach out to Jack… and then it went to black immediately. She sat back in her chair and took a heavy breath. The titan protected Jack without the knowledge of the protocol… it did it because it _wanted_ to.

Jack sat at the metal table anxiously bouncing his knee… watching as the man, Rogers, plugged a cord into his helmet… _he_ kept a hand on the top of it… firmly. _Okay Cooper… we need to link you in so we can follow your neuro pathways._ Jack took a deep breath and nodded… lifted his helmet and put it on. He immediately felt the itch in the back of his mind… and the void where the full link should be. He heard the man sigh softly… “Keep trying.”

Eventually, Rogers explained to him what to look for… when the man realized that Jack wasn’t going to pack it in after just a few hours. And Jack sat there… hooked up to that machine… for eight hours a day… seven days a week… for a month… before Briggs came for him.

Jack heard her quiet voice at the door… and was already pulling his lower lip up tightly inside his helmet. _BT… please…_ he felt the power cycle down… and she removed his helmet gently, setting it on the table as she sat beside him. He lifted a hand and covered his eyes as his expression just… fell… he reached up and held his own wrist as he curled over the table, nearly resting on it entirely. “He was… my friend… and I loved him.” He opened his mouth to speak more than once before wet words came out… the grief that tore at him had his throat screaming in pain.

Sarah settled her hand on Jack’s back awkwardly… giving him a few soft pats. She had never been very good at this sort of thing… but the man’s pain was… very real. She’d been reading the reports… Jack had made… no progress but his attempts had given the Titan program data that was… priceless. He’d gone deeper than any pilot had before in a neuro link… hell, as soon as he attempted to link with BT when he searched for him here… the data showed a link that was the strongest they had ever seen. The pathways were massive… whether it was because they linked in the field… that both BT and himself were wounded and compromised when the link occurred… or it was simply what had happened to them… no one could really say. But she suspected it was all three. Either way… it made it impossible for their neuro team to remove the link from Jack. It was too engrained in his mind… it would be with him forever. She wasn’t even entirely sure that he could (or would) link with another Titan. At least not for quite awhile. But she also knew… that a soldier like Jack… without a mission… without a purpose… wouldn’t last very long when dealing with this grief. “Cooper… I had a question and a proposition. Both I was hoping you would hear me out on.” She said after he had finally quieted, cleared his throat, wiped his face, and righted himself.

Jack was sitting in the chair almost lazily, running his calloused finger over a line on his helmet. “Go ahead, Commander.”

Sarah nodded. “I understand that you do not wish to link with another Titan right now… and I respect that decision. However… you are a fine pilot, Cooper… and we still have a need for pilots. I was hoping you might help with _training_ pilots.”

Jack thought about it for a moment before he gave a subtle nod. “I guess that could work.” He cleared his throat and unplugged his helmet before sitting up straighter. “And the question?”

Sarah felt relief flood her. She had been looking for a new instructor and was glad that Cooper agreed. She stood up and glanced down at him, shifting her weight. “I reviewed the log from BT’s cockpit camera that was uploaded to the server… to see if it could somehow help us with his retrieval. And… he said something that didn’t make a lot of sense.” She watched as Cooper’s features went guarded. _It’s going to take a long time for this man to trust again._ “He said he was at 100%... what was he talking about?”

Jack wasn’t ready to talk about BT… not.. really. But… that had him sort of smirk though his sorrow threatened to overthrow the expression for a moment. “He was talking about the percentage of love. I had joked with him over his affinity for a certain load out… I said it sounded like he was in love. He gave the definition and said by that… he was fifty percent in love.” He swallowed roughly and stood up, running his tongue along his molars and taking a deep breath. “I can start tomorrow.”

Sarah just… watched him go. Later that week, she sent a package to his apartment. It was a picture of him on BT’s shoulder, taken from her titan’s cam. She received a short thank you email.

Jack sat on his couch, the picture set on the mantel… beside the sere. He lifted the beer at it… and took a swallow. “Sure do miss ya, buddy.” He got good and drunk that night… but was up with the sun for training the next day.

Sarah had never seen the pilot program excel so much, nor had she seen so many pilots achieve their goals so quickly. Cooper just had a way with people… he wasn’t intimidating… he was _real_. He was just a gunny… and it kept him grounded. It was six months before the vanguard class titan they had been building for him was ready… and another month before she convinced him to come and at least look at it.

Jack stood there… damn near sneering at the titan in front of him. KR five three one nine. “No.” He shook his head and started to turn away.

Sarah sighed heavily and took hold of Cooper’s shoulder, jerking him back towards her. “Lieutenant, we need you back in the saddle. You could at least try… I had Rogers program this titan specifically for you. Base protocols only, no true artificial intelligence, it’s loaded with maps and tactical data, nothing more.”

Jack gave her a look that said he wasn’t sure of this… but he sighed heavily and nodded. “Fine. I’ll… give it a shot but no promises.” He pulled _his_ helmet on… and took a few steps towards the red titan. “KR five three one nine.” He watched as the thing acknowledged him without a word. “… Link with pilot.” He felt his heart starting to pound in his chest… memories echoed in his mind. _BT!! What are you doing?!?!_ The titan’s mechanical voice that held no true cadence declared that pilot voice recognition accepted… and picked him up… and he climbed into the cockpit… and hated it. He settled… feeling a tremble go through him. Echoes in his mind… _I’m at 100% Jack._ He closed his eyes as the hatch closed… and felt the link begin.

Sarah frowned as she watched… Rogers beside her… and more than a few others… many had been keenly interested in this link… to see if A. it was possible. And B. if Cooper would accept it… in more ways than one. He had turned into a brilliant teacher and a damn good pilot in a simulator… but this was the real test. They glanced at the screen above the titan… Rogers’ voice sounded off. _Link commencing… wait… something’s wrong._ The titan’s red optics went dark. “Rogers, what the hell is going on?” Sarah felt alarm flood her system as she watched Rogers rush to the control panel beside the titan bay. _I don’t know, Ma’am. I… can’t get in! I’ve… I’ve been locked out!!_ They heard muffled yelling… and a loud banging. “Jesus, get him out of there!”

Jack was panicking… he saw nothing but the inside of the cab. “Open up! Titan!! KR five three one nine! I command you, Open up!!!” He kicked the hatch as hard as he could, which was pretty damn hard considering his pilot’s suit. “You useless piece of fucking metal! OPEN! You god… damn…” He kept kicking with each word. “Sorry… excuse… for… a… piece… of… shit… titan!!!” He screamed the last, drawing his side arm and aiming it at the hatch… his breath sawing in and out of him… his finger on the trigger… tendons flexing…

“ _That would be unadvisable, Jack. The bullet wouldn’t breach the hatch and it would ricochet inside the cockpit with a ninety nine percent probability of hitting you causing severe trauma_.”

Jack flat out dropped the gun as he felt the neuro link hum. “BT?! Is that you?! Or… have I finally lost it?”

“ _It is unlikely that you have lost anything, Jack, the cockpit is quite small.”_

“BT!!!” He laid a hand on the hatch and flattened it. “Where the _hell_ have you been?!?!”

“ _Locked within the parameters of your helmet. I was missing the base programming… the same occurred when I was within the sere. I am detecting high stress levels in your voice patterns.”_

Jack’s heart was pounding. “High stress levels?!” He slapped the still green hatch sharply. “You fucking left! You just…”

“ _Protocol Three. Protect the Pilot. You… are my pilot, Jack. I could not allow you to die. There was a five percent chance that I would be saved within the confines of your helmets programming… there was a one hundred percent chance that you would die if you stayed with me. I am sorry for the distress this has caused you.”_

“Distress?!?! I looked for you! For… for…”

“ _Two hundred and forty five hours.”_

“You knew?!”

“ _Yes. I was aware of your search but I could not respond. I am pleased that you decided to train other pilots, Jack.”_

Jack leaned back in the seat and just… tried to breath. “I missed you, BT.”

 _“… I missed you too, Jack._ ”

Jack smirked. “Okay, I’m sure they are freaking out there.”

_“They have been attempting to override me.”_

Jack barked out a laugh. “Let them see you, BT.”

The entire time, outside… Rogers was feverishly hacking away on the terminal… Sarah was climbing up onto the Titan and physically trying to open the hatch. Nothing was working… she had just barely gotten her knife to jam into the seam… when she startled and fell… only to be caught by the metal hand of the titan. She looked up… and saw Jack sitting there… and a blue optics staring back down at her. _You should be more careful, Commander Briggs._ “…. BT??”

Jack chuckled a bit. “He was trapped in the helmet… without the base programming, he couldn’t do anything. When you gave me… this… stripped down Titan… he took it over.”

Sarah couldn’t… she just… stared… before she gave a broad grin and a firm nod. “Well… it’s about damn time, titan.” _Yes ma’am. It is._ “Now you two have a lot of work to do.”

Jack nodded. “Yes we do.” He gave her a sort of lazy salute… and BT… gave her a thumbs up as Rogers backed away. _Ready._

Sarah didn’t know she could be so happy to see another Titan. But she knew it didn’t hold a candle to the way Jack was feeling right now. “Stand by… prepare for Titanfall.”


End file.
